An Overdue Ban on a Dangerous Sweetener

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Sweeteners,

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Aspartame, <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein//green>Green News

 

Aspartame, first discovered in 1965 by the

pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle, is an

artificial sweetener marketed by Ajinomoto

Sweeteners under trademark names including

Nutrasweet, Equal and Canderel. After saccharin,

aspartame is the commonest sweetener, consumed by

over 200 million people worldwide, and represents

about 60 percent of the artificial sweetener market.

 

Aspartame provides food, soft drinks, candy and

chewing gum manufacturers with substantial cost

savings compared to sugar, which is 200 times

less sweet. Aspartame is a low calorie, which

helps people control their weight. It is also

used in vitamins and pharmaceuticals, including

syrups and antibiotics for children.

 

In January 1976, then Food and Drug

Administration (FDA) Commissioner Schmidt

testified before Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass)

that Hazleton Laboratories, under contract to

Searle, had been charged with falsifying toxicological data on the sweetener.

 

The FDA subsequently convened a Public Board of

Inquiry to review concerns on aspartame's

carcinogenic effects in experimental animals. In

1980, the Board concluded that aspartame could

" contribute to the development brain tumors. " The

FDA then recommended that, pending confirmation

of these findings, this sweetener should no longer be used.

 

In 2006, based on highly sensitive and life long

feeding tests in groups of about 200 rats and at

doses less than usual human dietary levels, the

prestigious Italian Ramazzini Foundation

confirmed that aspartame is unequivocally

carcinogenic. A high incidence of cancers was

induced in multiple organs, including lymph glands, brain and kidney.

 

Not surprisingly, these findings have been

sharply challenged by the sweetener industry,

major sweetener users, such as Coca-Cola,

PepsiCo, Nestlé and Monsanto, and also by the

industry oriented scientific journal Critical

Reviews in Toxicology. Other critics included

Donald Rumsfeld, former U.S. Defense Secretary, and earlier CEO of Searle.

 

This evidence on the carcinogenicity of aspartame

was strongly reinforced in a unique 2007 feeding

test, based on maternal feeding of rats in early

pregnancy, resulting in their lifelong exposure

to aspartame, beginning in fetal life. This

resulted in a still higher increase in the

incidence of cancers at sites including those

previously reported. In April 2007, the results

of this study were presented by Ramazzini

scientists at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York.

 

Under the explicit provisions of the 1958 Delaney

Law, which requires an automatic ban on

carcinogenic food additives, it is anticipated

that Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the newly appointed

FDA Commissioner and inspiring public health

advocate, will promptly ban the continued use of aspartame.

 

Samuel S. Epstein, M.D. is Professor emeritus of

Environmental & Occupational Medicine at the

University of Illinois at Chicago School of

Public Health; Chairman of the Cancer Prevention

Coalition; and author of over 200 scientific

articles and 15 books on cancer, including the

groundbreaking 1979 The Politics of Cancer, and the 2009 Toxic Beauty.

____________________________

More information on aspartame on www.mpwhi.com,

www.dorway.com and www.wnho.net Aspartame

Toxicity Center, www.holisticmed.com/aspartame